A little introduction before we start shall we. Polygamy is a marriage whereby a man marries more than one woman. Monogamy on the other hand is the normal marriage la, the one man one woman. Now I'm sure all of us here agree that polygamy is bad and all men should have just one wife. BUT the big question is polygamy is bad for WHOM? The man or the woman?
The common conception here is that polygamy is bad for woman and good for man rite? since the wives need to share their husband. However, just yesterday I've read this article in a book which uses basic economics principles to explain common human behaviours. One interesting behaviour which caught my attention is the following:
If polygamy benefits men and harms women, why do most countries outlaw polygamy even though most of the people who pass these laws bout polygamy are men?
I'm sure most ppl will argue that men outlaw polygamy coz they're not selfish and they're trying to protect the fairer sex. BUT no one is forcing women to marry a polygamous man. So the only logical reason for women who are in a polygamous marriage is they want to be in it or the benefits of being in a polygamous marriage outweighs the costs. Now, if that's the case then why is there a need to protect the women from polygamy?
According to the book, when a man marries a few women, obviously the number of available women will now drop rite. Thus, the number of available men will be higher than the number of available women (assuming the number of men and women was equal to begin with). Therefore, competition among the men will be higher since they now need to compete for fewer single ladies. Men will then need to hit the gym more often, work harder to earn more money, buy more flowers and chocolates for valentine etc etc which explains why men want to outlaw polygamy.
So you see, men outlaw polygamy not coz they're looking after the women but coz they're looking after their own benefits. Women don't need protection from polygamy coz if they don't wanna be in it, they can just leave the guy. So according to the book, polygamy doesn't benefits men and harms women. It's the other way around, it harms the men and benefits the women. So guys, stick to just one wife la, kesian all the other fellas out there.
Now before I end this post let me remind you that I'm not trying to support polygamy or monogamy or trying to make a political statement. I just wanna share this interesting view here to provoke some different thoughts and opinions about this topic. Ohh yeah, remember when I say they use basic economic principles to explain this behaviour? Let's see if you econ students can find out what are the economic principles used here.
Stop crying your heart out
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